We set out on January 2 of 2007 with some additional trepidation. The weather and the other drivers and what have we forgotten were added to by “how will Mom fair at the Jewish Home of Rochester in our absence? Since my last posting to this blog from Israel my mother has managed to “graduate” from her lovely apartment at the Summit Center, an independent living environment to a skilled nursing room at the Home. In most respects she is better cared for and more protected than she was when living alone, but she is also less able to speak up for her own needs. We have provided her additional aids and can with but hope for the best and plan to visit as we can and call as often as seems reasonable.
Some notes on technological changes that are affecting our travels and communications. We now have all our wire line phones forwarded to our cell phones so no more checking the voicemail at home and the office, but it does mean that interesting calls arrive at strange times from people who do not expect to find us driving a 36 foot motorhome in heavy traffic when they call.. We expect to find many more campgrounds offering free or low cost wifi connections. And connections through my phone continue to provide the final backup for connection so long as we are in Verizon territory. With all of this the weakest link will be my taking the time to write and post. Technology provides the tools, but the human must still perform.
Travel to Charlottesville was essentially uneventful. We arrived in daylight in temperatures in the 50’s and had everything set up before any of the C’Ville clan arrived home. As planned, on Friday Dan and Malena left for a wild and crazy weekend in NYC and we became the most blessed people on earth, Grandparents watching over the grandkids while the parents get away. The blessing runs both ways. We had a great time. The birthday party at the Charlottesville Skate Park gave me a chance to show off my ice skating abilities (only 30 years of rust) and teach Ali (as Alexander prefers to be called this month) some skating techniques – falling without hitting the head – turning the corner without falling, you get the idea. No damage done to any of my vulnerable parts.
We then had a visit with Gretchen and Ed Robb and the boys finally got to meet the horses and play in the Robb’s barn and home. Could not believe the weather, who would go ice skating in January with the outdoor temperatures pushing 70 under clear blue skies?
On Tuesday, the 8th we got under way southbound. We have two immediate goals. We plan to stop in Whitville, TN, the home of the Paper Clip Project. If you are not familiar with it, just google “Paper Clip Project”. Then we want to pay a visit to the Tessler family who we met on our trip to Israel last summer. Since we had plenty of time to cover the distance, we set out down the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of our favorite wanders. The forecast was grim, snow, fog etc but the weather as we got on the parkway was clear and sunny. An hour and 40 miles down the road the forecasters appeared to be right and the sky was darkening and the wind was picking up so we descended to route 11, giving our mapping software fits as it thought we ought to be on I 81. After our lunch break in Natural Bridge we agreed with Maggie (used to be HAL, but the new computer sounds better as a woman – go figure) and got up on I 81 as the weather continued to deteriorate. We decided to head for Baileytown RV Park in TN where we have stopped before on this run. We saw a sign that there was an accident 100 miles down the road and the right lane was closed. We thought nothing of it as that was almost two hours away including a stop for gasoline, propane and dumping the holding tanks. WRONG!! As we pulled out on to the road after the fuel stop it started to snow. As the snow let up traffic began to congeal and at mile mark 50 we came to a standstill. The accident had been listed at mile mark 42!. From there we crawled at an average 4 mph (8 miles 2 hours). Carol and I changed drivers twice without pulling off the road, easy to do at 0 mph. We finally saw the accident and it was a horrible tangle of two 18 wheelers, I am sure someone did not survive. As we pulled clear of the scene in the growing dark it began to snow in earnest. For the next 70 miles we had alternating clear and snow. Once we crossed into TN it seemed to be more clear than snow.
We are set up in Baileytown RV Park, just a bit later than planned and have had dinner, we will turn in soon.